


steal the air from my lungs (your hand forever's all i want)

by cosmicwritings



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, i mean. technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 23:19:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18537502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicwritings/pseuds/cosmicwritings
Summary: '"Ronan," I say, but then I am kissing him, because neither of us are boys with pretty words and it doesn't fucking matter anyway. I try and convey it through the way my lips move against his; here, these are the flowers that you've planted in my ribs, here, this is every heartbeat you have made my blood pump, here, this is all of me. His hands curl in my hair and, God, the softness of it almost makes me crumble.'alternatively, a conversation about moving forward, not back.





	steal the air from my lungs (your hand forever's all i want)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not going to fucking lie to you. this writing is Weird bc 1) i haven't written fic in SO long i'm sorry, i do have a life as we know it au for pynch in the works ! i just. need to be encouraged dfhgj and 2) i want to practice writing in first person more? bc i hate my writing in first person? so i was like! let's write something tender for pynch lmaoOoO okay anyways i love my boys and i would die on the hill of ronan moving out of the barns as self-growth xxx
> 
> title is from don't take the money by the bleachers !!!

"Do you not want me to come with you?"

The question hits me like a bullet wound right to the chest; I sink into the nearest chair and rest my elbows on the table, my forehead in my hands. He is speaking and looking at me without quite addressing me. His eyes are somewhere on the wall behind me, his hands are clenched in his pockets, his mouth a snarl. If I was anyone else, I would've said he was looking for a fight, but I know him, I  _ know  _ him. There's fear in his voice, no matter the front he is putting on to protect himself, he is fucking  _ terrified _ . I can feel myself trembling because surely he must know, he must know that that was never the problem, I could never turn him away ever.

Of course I want him to come with me. But how do I say that I want to stitch myself to him? How do I say that everyone I will ever meet will now fall short because he has made a place for himself in my heart and blood and goddamn bone marrow? The enormity of my desire is still shameful to me. I do not want to admit how much I would give up to wake up every morning in his arms.

"Who will take care of the Barns?" I say, exhausted. 

"The Barns has been fucking taking care of itself for years without my help," Ronan says.

I do not answer.

"Parrish. Adam," he corrects, and I have to look up, of course I do. When we make eye contact, I think my heart misses a beat. He is still so terrified, and it's strange, even now, even after all this time, that I have made someone love me this much. That someone is so afraid of me not wanting them back "Do you not want me to come to college with you?"

Because he does not mean once, to drop me off. He means indefinitely. He means leave behind a childhood kingdom of a home he just discovered again. For what? For my own dreams and ambitions that I will not give up, that I have grabbed onto with claws and refuse to shake off? I could not ask him to give up his life for me, he has given up enough to the world. I can't be something else that takes something away from him.

"This is your home. This is where you saw your future."

He whispered it into my skin once, late at night when we were wrapped in the sheets on his bed. The moon was crescent-shaped, I remember the light peeking through the gap in his curtain in his bedroom. I was supposed to be sleeping, because I always fall asleep first and his sleeping patterns are as inconceivable as the rest of him, and I want to say there was something profound about the reason I was awake, but in truth I cannot remember. 

What I remember is this: he says,  _ I'm not asking for you to not leave, only to come back, _ into my shoulder and I do not move. He does not want me to hear, otherwise he'd have said in the daylight; sure, maybe over breakfast when we're bleary-eyed and half-asleep, or elbow-deep in cow shit in the farm, or in the middle of an argument where we have both let out tempers get to our heads. This was not for me to hear, but I did.

Sometimes, my shoulder is still warm from the words.

When he thought about the future, he did not think about college or a 9-5 job. It was the Barns. It had always been the Barns in his mind, and I had known that -- I was going to do my undergrad degree away, and my masters degree away, and we were going work it out, because this was his home and I was not going to tear him away from that, the same way he would not ask me to leave my dreams. We were going to make it work, and we would've, damnit, I would've held it together with my own bare hands if I needed to. We've survived demons and magic and dangerous boys and dreams that turned into nightmares and fucking death itself. We could handle the miles in between us.

"You're my home, dipshit," he says, but he relaxes a little. Slugs an arm around my neck to pull me closer, so my forehead rests against his stomach, his hand gripping the back of my head softly. "My future is wherever I'm with you."

"I'm not asking you to give up your childhood home, Ronan." The words are muffled, so I turn my head to press my deaf ear against his stomach instead. 

"You're not asking me to, because that's not what I'm doing. I want to come with you, Adam, I want to be there for you." In a single movement, he pulls back and drops to crouch in front of me so we're eye-level. It's strange how a man of 6'3 and muscles, who I have seen stub his toe on the couch because he claims the furniture is too small, can move so gracefully sometimes. "The Barns is like a liminal space at the moment. If I stay here, I'm stuck. I want to do this fucking life thing together. I'd much rather do it living together than thousands of miles apart."

My heart is itchy, like I need to take it out of my chest right this second. The enormity of my desire is still shameful to me, but he is here, offering his own, and all I can think is,  _ Oh _ . Oh. So this is what it feels like. To be so in love with someone and for someone to be so in love with me. Oh. 

"I thought it was what I wanted," he admits. "To be here in a place where I have only happy memories of. But these last few weeks of summer here just hasn't felt right. Like I'm trapped in time and, Jesus fuck, I don't want to go back in time, I want to move forward. I want to move forward with  _ you _ ."

" _ Ronan _ ," I say, but then I am kissing him, because neither of us are boys with pretty words and it doesn't fucking matter anyway. I try and convey it through the way my lips move against his;  _ here _ , these are the flowers that you've planted in my ribs,  _ here,  _ this is every heartbeat you have made my blood pump,  _ here,  _ this is all of me. His hands curl in my hair and, God, the softness of it almost makes me crumble. 

He shifts, and the chair I'm sitting topples backwards; I fall gracelessly, all limbs and sharp elbows flailing before I land on my back, but he falls right with me. 

"Fuck off, you weigh a shit ton," I say, kicking him in the ribs to get him off me, but he rolls over instead, dragging me with him. "I'm not having sex with you on your kitchen  _ floor _ ."

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Parrish," but his words fall flat when he's already leaning to kiss me again, and I am pliable enough, knowing there's no need for urgency. We kiss like we have all the time in the world, and I suppose we do. To think I would have had to give this up. To think I was allowed to have this, lying on dirty floors with the sun's sunset bleeding through the open door, kissing the boy who knows me and has seen my soul like we had nothing to lose, talking about a future where the only thing that truly mattered was the word  _ together _ .


End file.
